Team Kermit........

2024 marks our 21st PMC as a Family, our 20th Anniversary as Team Kermit. We ride the PMC in honor and memory of all of the people whom our teammates hold dear. What brings us together as a team is friendship and the common bond of honoring and remembering our dear son, brother and friend Jared. Team Kermit was formed in 2005 by Ellen, Adam, Jared, myself, and our friends while Jared was undergoing treatment at the Jimmy Fund. Adam, the team, and I rode, while Ellen and Jared volunteered, Jared doing bicycle repairs from a wheelchair. The team is named for Kermit the Frog of Sesame Street fame. Kermit was one of Jared's favorite childhood characters and represents the ability that people have to rise above the ordinary in order to achieve great results. Kermit's theme It's not easy being green became Jared's mantra and helped him endure and even laugh through the often grueling treatments. Jared was the epitome of determination, resolve, dedication, bravery, and passion. Kermit inspired Jared and reminded him and all of us that we are limited only by our own dreams and desires. In September 2005, after our second PMC, Jared passed away after a 2 1/2 year battle with the disease. He was 23 years old. In 2006 we established the Jared Branfman Sunflowers For Life Fund For Pediatric Brain And Spinal Cancer Research at the Jimmy Fund. All the money raised by Team Kermit goes through the PMC and into our fund. It supports research into the family of brain tumors that Jared had, and is helping to make the dream of no more cancer a reality. It is a fitting legacy to Jared's wish to help others. To date, Team Kermit has raised $6.8million. Listen to Dr. Mark Kieran, Former Director, Pediatric Medical Neuro-Oncology, and the former administrator of our fund, talk about the advancements that have been, and are being made, because of your support: https://vimeo.com/217691250

In 2012 my family and Team Kermit was honored by being featured in the PMC Opening Ceremonies that was aired live on Chronicle Magazine. Here is the piece. Our story begins at the 2:15 mark: http://tinyurl.com/d2od42n In 2017 my personal story was featured in the PMC Opening Ceremonies and aired live on WBZ-TV. https://vimeo.com/263402260 We ride determined to see that cancer becomes a thing of the past.

This year is special for another reason. Not only is Addie returning as our Pedal Partner, Addie is a vivacious and very smart 6 year old. She loves music, and cooking, and wants to be a chef when she grows up. When we met her, mom Jillian, and big brother Colin it was love at first sight. At just 6 months old Addie was diagnosed with neurofibromatosis. Later, during a regular checkup, careful observation and subsequent testing revealed an optic pathway glioma. To learn more about Addie and her medical condition click on the image to the left.

Addie's story was featured on Anderson Cooper's The Goods. Click on the image to watch the 1 minute piece.

We are blessed and thrilled to welcome a second Pedal Partner to our Family. Say hi to Matilda Keinath. Tilly is fun, loving and curious. She loves drawing, painting, dancing, soccer and lacrosse. Her older brother Henry, and little sister Winnie, are her biggest fans supporting her as she competes on the town soccer and lacrosse fields. She also is an active member of her local Daisy troop. Currently her favorite color is purple and she is a huge fan of axilotos and narwhals! She loves books and is starting to become a voracious reader with her favorite series at the moment being Ivy and Bean. Click on the picture of Addie and Tilley to hear their greeting.

Connecting with Tilly, her older brother Henry, younger sister Winnie and mom and dad Sarah and Brendon has immediately added another layer of emotion and purpose to our Pan Mass Challenge story, and it has brought happiness and joy to another family in the throes of cancer. Addie and Tilly are the same age and they share Dr. Tom pictured above. Sarah and Brendon are also Team Kermit PMCers riding 162 miles from Wellesley to Provincetown.

We are an inclusive and diverse group of men and women, young and old, spanning nine decades, and hail from California, Oregon, Texas, Iowa, Illinois, Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Connecticut, Vermont, Rhode Island, Ontario, and Massachusetts. Some of our teammates are brand new to cycling and first time PMCers while others are well seasoned riders and PMC veterans including a teammate doing his 33rd PMC. We are relatives and friends, husband and wife pairs, partners, father-son, mother-son, father-daughter, grandfather-grandaughter, mother-daughter and brother-sister duos. Many of us are cancer survivors ourselves. One of our teammates rode a portion of the route while she was undergoing treatment and the following year did the full ride from Sturbridge to Provincetown. We ride not only remembering and inspired by Jared and in honor of our young pedal partners Addie Gould and Tilly Keinath, but each for their loved ones and friends who have been stricken by the devastating effects of cancer.

This year, in the face of joy, Team Kermit is also heartbroken as we ride in memory of dear friend and Teammate Brian Kickham. Brian was a man of extraordinary kindness, empathy, community service and philanthropy. He tragically passed away after six months of treatment for pancriatic cancer. His memory and legacy will live on in our minds and our actions.

Team Kermit will be on the road from Sturbridge to Provincetown on August 3rd and 4th and hope that you'll be there with us helping to fulfill Jared's hope and his legacy...........to rid the world of this terrible disease so that your children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren never have to hear the word cancer again.

best wishes and love to all,

For Team Kermit; Steven, Ellen, and Adam Branfman

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Steven Branfman

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Team Kermit